


To Be Saved

by PiratePlume



Series: Stranded [1]
Category: The Night Shift (TV 2014)
Genre: Drabble, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiratePlume/pseuds/PiratePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You've boarded a flight and your flight happens to be next to an extremely attractive man.  You've had to have hit the karma jackpot or something, right?  Only... wow, that's a lot of turbulence.  Like... a lot.  Oh no, that's not turbulence.  The engines have failed, the planes going down.  You're about to die...</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Saved

**Author's Note:**

> So, I decided to challenge myself by trying to write a story about "you", the reader, and TC Callahan. I don't think I'm very good at it, I mean, how can I characterize what you'd do? How you'd act? How you'd behave in such a situation? Truth is, I can't. But you can just pretend it's you, if you'd like.
> 
> Also, why'd I go with a plane crash and being stranded on an island? Truth is, I wrote this fic ages ago, when The Night Shift's twitter account posted a question asking who you'd like to be stranded on an island with. I've just refrained from posting it. There is a chance I may develop the tale more (so I've chosen to mark this as a series in case the inspiration hits) but, for now, I'll leave you with this.

In your fear, you’ve become angry. The world is hurtling past you, an oxygen mask secured on your face, and your stomach feels as if it’s been physically thrust up into your throat. Illogically you’re berating yourself. Why did you decide to fly? Why did you need to take this plane? Why did you laugh off those who were afraid of a plane taking a nose-dive from the air and careening toward the earth below? The plane cuts through clouds. Everything is a blur. There are screams, there are tears. Everything has become an orchestra of catastrophe in your ears.

It would be the plane you were on that would crash. Just great. Here’s to the life you’ve lived thus far, which you’re suddenly mocking. This anger is how you mean to cope with the imminent approach of death as it comes closer and closer with each second. At least it’s better than crying. At least it’s better than thinking about your loved ones that will never see you again.

The guy beside you isn’t crying either, but he looks horrified. When your head turns and you look at him he turns wide-eyes graced with fear onto you. A few hours earlier you two had been settling in your seats and exchanging brief pleasantries such as names, destinations, occupations, and general life facts. TC, his name was. _“What’s it stand for?”_ You’d asked him. He hadn’t told you.

There’s a feeling of skin, a bit rough, against yours. The human contact in this moment makes you jolt. Your eyes flash down and see his hands curling over yours. You look back up to his eyes.

You’re not angry anymore. The memories of your life crash through the barrier you’d tried to protect your heart with and your vision blurs as tears burn hot in your eyes. This is it. This is your life. This is how it ends. Not drifting away peacefully in your sleep or even hooked up to a machine in the hospital, surrounded by loved ones. No. Your life ends holding the hand of a practical stranger and you had a feeling the final impact was going to hurt like hell…

 

**************

 

If not for the pain wracking your body as it spasms in coughs, you’d be certain you were dead. Instinctually your body has kicked into survival mode and is trying to get you to hack saltwater from your lungs as you curl in on yourself, moaning and coughing. The soft sound of the ocean tide, a sound often recorded for relaxation tapes, envelops you as a cold wave comes back and sloshes over your body. The pain intensifies on your side so greatly that you suck in air, making a loud hissing sound. You open your eyes, even though they sting, and wearily lift your head. The world spins, but you want to see why your side hurts.

What greets you is a gruesome sight of torn flesh, brilliantly glaring red and trickling blood. The salt in the ocean water hurts and feebly, you try to grasp the sand to drag your body up the shoreline. It’s futile, you start coughing immediately and the water rushes back up, splashing across your wounded figure all over again. You collapse, a weak cry leaving your mouth, and the world spins to a dizzying degree…

 

**************

 

“Agh,” you moan, coming into consciousness. “Fuck,” you hiss in a low breath. The more you wake up the more you’re aware of the various points of pain and soreness that your body has been impacted with. You force yourself to open your eyes, blinking back bleariness to try and understand your surroundings. You faintly remember the last time you’d been awake there’d been a blinding amount of sunshine whereas here there’s only dim darkness. A little flicker of orange and yellow light makes you frown, shifting where you lay to figure out where it’s coming from.

There he is. The man that had been sitting beside you on the plane is now crouched with a feeble fire built of twigs and dry grass between the two of you. His eyes are pinned on you but you can’t read his face, the shadows dancing oddly over it courtesy of the fire. He licks his lips and unfolds his hands, taking a stick and poking at the little fire. “Morning, Sleeping Beauty.” His voice is playful, but that can’t be right…

“How –” Is what you would have said, if you could have talked. You find your throat is frustratingly dry and trying to talk irritated it, making you cough. When you cough, it hurts, especially the wound on your side. You look at it, expecting to see the wound again, only to find it patched up.

“Easy,” he says, laying his fire-poking stick aside and standing. His hands grab something small, round, and brown before he kneels down by your face. A coconut shell. A coconut shell filled with water. He holds it at your cracked lips and slowly tilts it to give you relief. You gulp greedily and he frowns. “Not too much.” He takes the shell away and you’re infuriated, because you’re still thirsty, but you know he’s right. Too much water at once will hurt. Too much water will deplete what he’s gathered.

What he’s gathered… You look around the small cavern you’re both in and find yourself impressed. He’s been busy. Aside from the fire, the coconut shells which you assume hold water, there’s also a small pile of unopened coconuts, long sticks that appear as if he’s sharpening them into weapons, bits and pieces from what you assume were things on the plane, and even a few dried…fish? Jeez, he has been busy.

“I found you on the beach,” he says as he sits back and sets the coconut shell gingerly down as if afraid of upsetting it and spilling what’s left inside. He’s assumed you were about to ask him how you got to be where you are. “You were wounded pretty badly. I patched you up with what I could,” he rubs his chin and shakes his head slightly, “I’ve been keeping an eye for infection but you should be alright. I haven’t found any other survivors, though pieces of the plane have started washing up. I can’t see any sign of civilization yet either.”

Finally, you’ve found your voice. “How can you be so level-headed?” You ask, bewildered. “We’re fucking _stranded_ on a _deserted island_! This kind of stuff just doesn’t _happen_!!” Your voice is raising, your heartbeat increasing. You’re starting to panic.

“Clearly it does.”

If you didn’t owe this guy your life and if you weren’t so banged up you’d probably punch him in his smug, handsome face.

“Look, the important thing is that we remain calm. Panicking isn’t going to help our survival.”

Maybe you’re strong enough to at least flip him off. Instead you settle with a disgruntled, “alright then, Castaway, what is?”

He cracks a small, lop-sided grin at your comment. “I was an army ranger.” He explains, “I’m a doctor. I know enough about survival to get us by for a little while. Eventually they’ll be searching for survivors, right? We’ll figure out something when that comes and we’ll get rescued.” He’s so matter-of-fact, so determined, that you can’t help but nod at his words. Hell, at least he’s got a better plan than you do. “Here,” he says, suddenly, and you blink to look down at his hand. He’s holding one of the fish, it’s shriveled up into itself and its scales are brown. It looks as if it was cooked and then laid out in the sun to dry. Immediately you wrinkle your nose in distaste.

“Ew.” You groan, but your stomach twists in hunger. TC chuckles and pushes the meat into your hands.

“Your body needs it. Be careful of the bones.”

An hour later you’ve eaten what you can find that’s edible on the fish, you’ve had another few sips of water, and you feel your energy waning. TC changed your bandages earlier and that had been a painful ordeal with a lot of cusswords off your lips and gentle reassurance from his. You’re lying down again and you feel it, the sleepiness drawing over you, pulling you further and further from consciousness. Through the dwindling flame you’re watching him because he’d resumed that spot across from you and he was using a sharp rock to cleave bits of wood from the end of a branch, effectively creating a crude spear of sorts.

“Hey, TC?” You say, voice subdued by sleepiness. You see him still in his actions, lifting his head to view you with a searching look. A small smile softly graces your lips. “Thank you,” you murmur before you finally let sleep claim you, falling into unconsciousness.

And because you’ve fallen asleep you missed the way TC nodded and then, once your eyes closed, that smile he’d worn fell away. You missed the way his gaze became haunted and his grip on the branch slackened, or how his shoulders dropped. As you slept in peace you missed the sight of a haunted man, a frightened man, this man who put a mask of confidence on while he worked so efficiently to survive. He’d saved you from a physical death but maybe, just maybe, TC Callahan was the one that needed saving.


End file.
